Weapons and Skills

Checklist

• Skill books cost $ 1,620 and can be used from level 5.
• Weapon skills only work while you're holding their weapon.
• Each skill needs training at Lv 0, Lv 6 and Lv 11.
• You start with 10 skill slots and can unlock up to 50.
• LightMerit of Speed is yours from level 1 and only needs switching on.

The six weapons

Sword, Fist, Katana and Spear fight up close and take their damage from STR, while Bow and Dart attack from a distance and take theirs from AGI. A weapon's normal attack is a combo of six strikes, and the table shows how far each weapon reaches and roughly how long it takes to get through all six.

Reach is measured in the game's own distance units, so it's easiest to read by comparing the weapons with each other, and a Bow, for example, reaches four times as far as a Sword. The last strike of the combo reaches the furthest, which is why each weapon has two numbers. With a Bow or Dart your normal attacks also reach 1 further for every 3 points of AGI you have, counting the AGI on your gear, although the reach of their skills doesn't change.

What each stat does

Weapon skills

Each weapon has five skills, and the Book Seller has a book for every one of them. A skill hits for your attack multiplied by its damage rate, before critical hits and the target's defence, and the tables show that rate at Lv 1 and at Lv 12. The skills cost around 25 to 40 MP each at Lv 1 and around 90 to 145 by Lv 12. Some books are spelled differently from the skill they teach, and where that happens the name on the book is shown in brackets.

Sword

Fist

From Lv 2, Ye Chou and Chon Shaw can also stun what they hit, and by Lv 12 the stun lasts 5.7 seconds.

Katana

Every Katana skill adds to your critical hit chance, by 5% at Lv 1 and 19% at Lv 12 against a monster of your own level, with 2.5% more for each level you're above the monster and 2.5% less for each level below it. From Lv 2, Nu Pi can also stun, for up to 3.8 seconds at Lv 12.

Spear

Bow

Bai Bu also gives you a chance to dodge attacks, 5% at Lv 1 and 33% at Lv 12.

Dart

Every Dart skill also poisons what it hits, and the poison does more damage and lasts longer as the skill levels up. Yin An gives you the same chance to dodge as the Bow's Bai Bu, 5% at Lv 1 and 33% at Lv 12.

Learning skills

Every town has a Book Seller, and their shop is split into tabs:

Two towns do it a little differently. In Beijing the element books are sold by Liu Luo Guo, while Kee Xiao Lan sells the weapon and Titan books, and in Lan Chow the third tab has the job books for Mining, Collecting and Hunting at $ 10,000 each, with the Titan books sold by the Black Lady instead.

Element skills work with any weapon. Their damage comes from your level and INT rather than your weapon's attack, and some of them heal you, raise your defence or strengthen your element damage for a while instead of hitting a target.

Anyone can buy a book, but it can only be used once you're at its level. Double-click the book in your inventory to learn the skill, which then appears in the Skill window K. The Skill tab has pages 1 and 2 for your skills, plus Array and Titan.

A new skill starts at Lv 0, and you can't use it until you've trained it with the Training Master. Each skill needs training three times, at Lv 0, Lv 6 and Lv 11, and at the last two its skill EXP stops just short of the next level until the training is done:

The very first training you do is free, whichever skill it's for, and after that the fees are the same for every skill. You have to be holding a weapon skill's weapon when you start its training, and the training itself takes place in the Training Arena, where you have between 2½ and 5 minutes to defeat 12 to 56 monsters, depending on the skill. If you win, the skill goes up a level, and if you die or run out of time, you're sent back out with the fee spent. Titan skills and job skills don't need any training.

Once a skill is trained, it earns 100 skill EXP each time you use it and it hits something, or each time you use it on yourself, but uses in a village or a duel don't count. Skills go up to Lv 12, and the EXP each level needs climbs quickly, so Chan Song, for example, needs 29,650 EXP to go from Lv 1 to Lv 2, 166,600 to go from Lv 6 to Lv 7 and 4,541,600 for its last level.

How the hotbar works

Skill points

Monsters give you skill points as well as EXP. When you kill a monster on your own, you get (monster level − your level + 5) × 10 points, up to 140, so a monster at your own level gives 50 and one five levels above you gives 100, while one five or more levels below you gives none. Raid bosses give far more, from 30,000 in the Training Arena raid up to 800,000 in the Rabidity Inferno.

Skill points are spent in the Special tab of the Skill window, which sorts its skills into four groups, Fight, Speed, Motion and Living. When you click one, the window shows how many points its next level costs next to Required and how many you have next to Available, and Training buys that level.

The Fight group has Berserk Mode and the abilities, which raise things like your HP, MP, AP, defence and recovery, or your skill with one weapon or one element. Most abilities have many levels, starting at 1,000 points and costing more with each one. Speed holds the Light Merit skills, Motion holds the emotes, and Living holds everyday actions such as meditating, duels, trading and running a stall, along with the crafting skills.

Skill slots

A character starts with 10 skill slots, which is how many skills you can learn, and every Extra Knowledge Scroll you use adds 5 more, up to 50 after eight scrolls. The slots belong to the character, so all four of your Martial Paths share them.

The first character you make on each world gets one Extra Knowledge Scroll in the Classic Sealed Lv 4 box, which opens at level 20. After that, the scroll can come out of the Azure Dragon Chest that the boss of the Training Arena raid leaves behind, about one time in three. That raid is open from level 20 to groups of one to four players, and you can clear it once a week.

Light Merit Skills

Light Merit makes you move faster for as long as it's switched on, and it uses up a little MP every 3 seconds while it runs. Every character already has LightMerit of Speed from level 1, and the two faster ones are bought with skill points in the Speed group of the Special tab:

For comparison, running is 400 and walking is 200. The extra speed only kicks in once you've been moving for a moment, which is the time in the last column. To switch Light Merit on, double-click it in the Special tab, or put it on the quick bar and press its key, and do the same again to switch it off. It also switches itself off when your MP runs out.

Berserk

Berserk makes you stronger for a while once its gauge is full. To use it you first need Berserk Mode from the Fight group of the Special tab, which you can buy from level 10 for 10,000 skill points. It has a single level and doesn't need training, and without it the gauge never fills.

The gauge is the orange meter at the bottom of the screen beside your HP, AP and MP bars, and only monster kills fill it. Each kill adds twice the monster's level minus your own, so higher-level monsters fill it faster, while the gauge itself gets bigger as you level up. At level 30, for example, a full gauge takes about 150 kills of monsters at your own level.

When the gauge is full it shows READY, and clicking it starts Berserk, after which it shows ACTIVE. Berserk lasts 60 seconds plus another 10 seconds for every 10 levels you have, so at level 35 it lasts 90 seconds. While it's on, you do 5% more damage, your AP drains more slowly while still taking its full share of each hit, your skills cost about a quarter less MP, and your HP, AP and MP come back faster.

You can't start Berserk while riding a Titan. Dying ends it and empties the gauge, and the gauge also goes back to empty whenever you move to another map.

Using more than one weapon

You can change weapons at any time by equipping another one, but your skills only work with the weapon they belong to, and your stats will usually suit one kind of weapon, since STR powers the close-range weapons and AGI the Bow and Dart. Martial Path lets one character keep up to four builds for this, each with its own level, EXP, stats and worn gear, and you switch between them with Switch Path in the Status window.

Everything to do with skills is shared between the paths, which covers your skills and their levels, your skill points, your skill slots and your abilities, along with your inventory and money. A path you set up for a Bow can use the Bow skills you trained on another path straight away, so only its level, stats and gear have to be built up again. Switching costs nothing, although you have to be out of combat for 30 seconds first.

Read the Martial Path guide